--- In [email protected], "coshlnx" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://www.tinyurl.com/yvkdc3
Hi, I have not posted for a month or two -- and have read only a few threads that caught my interest. Sorry if my comments reflect this deficiency. I find a number of posts / articles interesting and stimulating -- and oddly ironic and paradoxical -- in a nice way :). Re: Andrew and Sam -- I can read much of each, seperately and agree with most of their points. That they find "huge" disagreement among themselves causes me to hypothesize they are only reading what they THINK they other is saying, not the actual words on the page. A common theme and experience on FFL, in my view. Barry as always, and correctly, points to the fluidity, transatoriness (is that like 'beyond satoriness' ??? :) ), impermanance and eternal incompleteness of "midsets" (my words) and states of attention, views, perceptions etc. And the ego-laden "icing" on such that is an attraction to "own it". (I own up to having done that at times :)) A lesson in this, per my "view" (transatory as it is), is to remember -- when its forgotten -- that both the perceptor and the perception are always changing and thus investing in the "Truth" of a matter -- particuarly with "ego capital / coins" -- is a rather shallow and unproductive venture. Put a stake in the ground when its needed to get something done, else -- don't waste time "staking" the territory with what will always be "old and outdated stakes" -- that is, staking out positions, staking ones ego on poles across the land. On the other hand, its good to remember that some "stakes" in the ground work pretty well for a long long time. One should always be willing a a moments notice to dig up an old stake, but not waste time challenging some "useful" though impermanent stakes every hour. Sorry if the metaphors and analogies are too nauseating. :) I am a visual sort of person and these ideas jump at me in visual form. Jim "trumps" Barry in a way with an view (not foreign to Barry I know) that the "real deal" is to get beyond the dualities of ego/ego-challenging and views / view challenges to the state that just IS. No ego, no ownership, no proseletizing for one's position, no need for put downs to make one's postion appear better than others. Just sterling truth, non-attachment (in the best of senses), no filters, no biases, no pre-set or "canned" / dogmatic view, ever fresh, compassionate, patient, ever innocent, pure fluidty in the NOW. Perhaps capsulated as "In the KNOW and in the NOW". An irony, and "trap", is that many individuals and groups think, perceive, view, and are "group-thinked" into believing they are living the above "real deal" beyond duality and ego. Eternal truth of the sun-shine mind. :) And cling to dogma in doing so. Dogma that can't be "true" if others' dogmas are also true. For example, many of us thought we were "golden", in the TMO, "When the Truth is Found...". Only to be disappointed when the rest of the song played out "found ... to be Lies". Lies is perhaps too dramatic .. but "incomplete" describes it better. That is still a huge disappointment. And yet its humbling. Arrogance dissipates and flexibility grows from such humbling experiences. Jumping back to the "duality" pair -- Jim and Barry, ironically the two appear to argue strongly for "their" points of view and use "put downs" to usurp and weaken the view and holder of "opposite" views. When each, I think. gets IT - and the concompleteness of such duality -- if not lives IT (at least some of the time). Perhaps part of the issue is responding to what one SEES others as saying, not the unbiased, unlayered, unfiltered words on the page. Ironically, if not commically, that is a sign of attachement to a views, filters and prejudgements -- all seeping into the "eternal freshness, gentleness, flexibility of IT". On a parallel front, Sam makes a point that doing "the right thing" (my words) -- what many would consider campassionate and ethical action -- CAN and often does manifest with NO religion. Indeed compassionate appearing action due to threat of punishment, perhaps "eternal punishment", seems not to be real compassionate-based action but fear based action. An interesting premise to explore would be how much religion produces such fear-based (or reward-based a la "eternal life") "good works", vs. non-relgious factors that produce more pure compassionated based actions. Recently I have "seen" more into the world of suffering, pain and fear that much of the world experiences. Its overpowering, heart-wrenching and humbling. How can one see that, and not want to reduce suffering and pain, if only step by step, stone by stone? There is no religosity behind such impulses. Perhaps Jim and Barry can look / breath inside and "breath out' ways to reduce each others' limitations -- in creative ways that don't spark new "wars of duality". Just some thoughts. I'll take the opposite position tomorrow. Or one of "my" antithical forms will. :)
